“So, You Think You Know Wine?” Episode 3.1

WineAlign is pleased to present Episode 3.1 of “So, You Think You Know Wine?”

The feedback we received from the first two series has been fantastic, and we are thrilled to be bringing together an even larger group of Canada’s top wine palates to compete this season. (Episode 3.1)

Season 3 showcases some of Canada’s most widely recognized, award-winning sommeliers and wine critics. WineAlign’s own David Lawrason, Sara d’Amato, Steve Thurlow and Master Sommelier John Szabo are joined and challenged by Master Sommelier Jennifer Huether, Master Sommelier Bruce Wallner, Zoltan Szabo (Sommelier at Trump Tower), William Predhomme (Sommelier at Canoe) and Bill Zacharkiw (Montreal Gazette).

Our critics have to rely on skill and talent as they use their nose, eyes and palette to identify the flavours, aromas and general characteristics of a wine to correctly determine five elements about the wine. For a wine critic, a blind taste test is the ultimate challenge.

How the Game is Played

The competition is run in tournament style where our critics compete to correctly identify the grape, country, region, year and price of the wine. This season we’ve divided the nine critics into three divisions, the winner of each division goes onto the final and the three second place finishers play off in a wildcard round with the winner joining the first place finishers in the final round.

Division ‘A’ – William Predhomme, Steve Thurlow, John Szabo MS

Division ‘B’ – Sara d’Amato, Bruce Wallner MS, Bill Zacharkiw

Division ‘C’ – Jennifer Huether MS, David Lawrason, Zoltan Szabo

What hasn’t changed since last season is our very engaging host, Amil Niazi, and our scoring methodology.

The Scoring

There are several parameters that the critics are scored on for up to 10 points per wine :

• Varietal = up to 3 points for varietal or style

• Location = up to 3 points (2 points for Country and 1 point for Region)

• Price = up to 2 points (2 points for +/- 2.5% of price, 1 point for +/- 10% of price)

Episode 3.1 is ready to go!

Pour yourself a glass of wine and pull up a chair and enjoy round one which features our critics from Division ‘A’. Our returning champion John Szabo faces off against Steve Thurlow and a newcomer to the series, Will Predhomme. Will may be new to the series, but you’ll soon see that he’s definitely not new to wine. In this episode our critics get very close. Well, within 2,000 miles anyway!

Additional episodes of “So, You Think You Know Wine?” will be posted on WineAlign over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them and encourage you to share them with your friends.